


9th

by beili



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Curtain Fic, M/M, Nostalgia, Oral Sex, Post-Canon, Romance, spies in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:22:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24040513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beili/pseuds/beili
Summary: “And here I was, having a patriotic moment,” Ilya says, deadpan.Or, Ilya and Napoleon celebrating the May anniversaries.
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo
Comments: 5
Kudos: 144





	9th

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valmora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/gifts).



> For [Val Mora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/pseuds/Val%20Mora), with all my love.

Ilya is about to do up his tie when there’s an insistent knock on his door. He’s halfway through pulling the gun out of the holster before he realizes – the only person it could reasonably be doesn’t warrant a bullet to the face; the ones who do would not have bothered with knocking.

He opens the door, and, sure enough, one Napoleon Solo is there, in a suit without a tie, a bottle of champagne in hand. The top button of his shirt is undone, in concession to the incongruously warm weather.

“Good morning, Peril,” he says. “Or should I say, happy anniversary?”

Ilya blinks. The last time he’d hit his head was in Tokyo, and he certainly didn’t drink last night.

“Ilya?” Napoleon says, concerned now. “Are you alright? May I come in?”

Ilya opens the door wider, because the hallway may be deserted, but it doesn’t mean no one would wake up. Some of his neighbours probably haven’t even gone to bed yet. He’d rather avoid the talk.

Napoleon slips into the flat, still frowning a little.

“I didn’t expect that reaction,” he says, even as Ilya’s mind finally unsticks, and he says, intelligently, “What?”

“We’ve known each other for a year,” Napoleon says, slowly, putting the bottle on Ilya’s tiny, scratched kitchen table. He’s keeping his hands where Ilya can see them, Ilya notes, but his voice is light. This definitely isn’t helping. “Good job for UNCLE to bring us both to work for them. So, happy anniversary? I brought champagne”.

Ilya’s thoughts had been on other things, but he supposes he gets it now, as much as anyone can get the mysterious inner workings of Napoleon Solo’s mind.

“It’s six a.m. on a Saturday,” he says. “What are you doing up?”

Napoleon wordlessly indicates the champagne bottle.

“What about you?” he says, eyes roaming up and down Ilya’s torso. His lips curve into a small suggestive smirk. “Going somewhere?”

“We’re both expected at work in two hours,” Ilya reminds him, blandly. “And I was going to drop by the war memorial”.

Something visibly clicks in Napoleon’s brain as he remembers the date, takes in Ilya’s plain white shirt and equally plain blue tie, and puts two and two together. His face does that complicated shift through several expressions, each more fleeting than the last, that Ilya knows very well by now. The corner of Ilya’s mouth quirks up, humourless, and Napoleon answers with an equally bitten-in, mirthless smile.

It’s the Victory Day.

Ilya turns back to his small dresser to finally finish doing up his tie.

“Well,” Napoleon says, through the sound of the fridge door opening and the clink of the bottle, “I guess the champagne can wait. No one should drink it warm, anyway, and it’s getting quite balmy out there”. A few seconds later, his hand slides carefully over Ilya’s shoulder, rests on his waist. Ilya turns to him, halfway through his Winsor. “We certainly can’t come in to work drunk”. And oh, Ilya knows that smile. He knows it too well.

“What did you have in mind?” Ilya says, because for all the stoic façade and bravado, he’s helpless in front of this impossible man.

Napoleon’s hand brushes the tails of Ilya’s tie open, slips it from his neck entirely; his fingers rest, gentle, on Ilya’s jaw. 

“I was thinking we could celebrate with a blowjob,” he says, mouth quirking to the side again, this time with more humour. He’s affecting a carefree expression, but his eyes are hot. Ilya wants to kiss him, and there’s no reason not to, so he does.

“And here I was, having a patriotic moment,” Ilya says, deadpan.

“Carry on, darling,” Napoleon says, already sliding to his knees, and Ilya bites off a groan at the feel of Napoleon’s nose, just brushing up and down the front of his trousers, teasing. “I won’t interfere with that”.

Ilya just stares down at him, suddenly too turned on to snark back, as Napoleon’s talented fingers slide down the zip and bring him out, half-hard already. Napoleon grins up at him, wickedly, and starts with tiny, teasing licks before taking Ilya into his mouth.

In under five minutes, he has Ilya holding on to the dresser for dear life with one hand, muffling the sounds that threaten to spill out with the other. The walls are incredibly thin, and while Ilya has absolutely no illusions about what his neighbours think of him and Napoleon, and has heard far worse in the time he’s lived here, he’d rather not wake anyone up with his moans if he can help it. Napoleon, the devil, does something entirely illegal and wonderful with his tongue, and Ilya bites into his fist as he comes.

It’s embarrassingly quick, entirely unexpected, and Ilya nearly blanks out for a moment. His heart is thudding heavily in his chest and his knees threaten to give out.

Napoleon keeps humming around him through it all, the teasing bastard, until Ilya drags him up and kisses him, slightly uncoordinated and messy, and Napoleon bites into his lip as Ilya’s hand opens his slacks. Any other day, Ilya might’ve thought of taking his time, teasing him back, but it’s the last thing on his mind at the moment. A lock of hair slips out over Napoleon’s forehead as Ilya’s hand speeds up around him, thumb pressing lightly into the slit, and soon Napoleon comes, too, panting into Ilya’s neck, his head heavy on Ilya’s shoulder.

Ilya presses his mouth to Napoleon sweaty temple, one arm around him as he cleans them both up with a convenient handkerchief and they both gain enough structural integrity to stand up unassisted. Napoleon zips himself back up and has the champagne bottle opened in the time it takes Ilya to tuck his shirt back in. The only proper glasses Ilya has are two vodka shots, and they drink champagne, just perfectly chilled, out of coffee mugs like students. Afterwards, Napoleon kisses him, their lips tingly and cool from the drink, and does up Ilya’s tie himself, the knot a lot more complicated than Ilya would’ve used. They stand for a long moment, noses just brushing, the taste of Moet between them, until Ilya draws back a little to watch the way Napoleon’s lashes flutter against his still-flushed cheeks. Napoleon’s hands rest lightly on Ilya’s waist, not quite an embrace.

It’s unimaginably decadent, and Ilya loves every second of it.

“So,” Napoleon says, with a glance at his wristwatch, “if we leave now, we can still get to the memorial, and even be on time for all the paper-pushing”. He smiles at Ilya, something delicate and tender in his expression; Ilya kisses him again, a gentle brush of lips in gratitude.

*

Napoleon watches Ilya all day. He’s clearly trying for discreet, at first, but for a spy, he’s surprisingly unsubtle, and Ilya catches him at it fairly quickly. The visit to the memorial had been brief – he’d had no flowers, and no familiar names to linger on; but Napoleon has seen through him, if the frequent glances are any indication. Ilya can feel it, the homesickness, resting heavily over his heart, but the unexpectedly wonderful morning has eased it, just a little. He’s still a bit languid when they arrive to the office, and by the time they divide the pile from the Archives between them and dig in, he doesn’t feel lost and brooding. The feeling that settles over him is lighter, a curious sadness, not unlike the numbness left after the tingle of champagne, and he’s floating in it, buoyed, instead of sinking under the weight of grief and sorrow. Napoleon is careful not to look worried, but he takes to brushing his hand over Ilya’s shoulders every time he has to get up from his desk.

Unsubtle, indeed.

Napoleon doesn’t do anything as drastic as waylay Ilya in an empty corridor and push him into a convenient storeroom, but it seems to be a close thing. Instead, he makes a concerted effort at what can only be deemed psychological warfare. His sleeves are rolled up, another concession to the weather, and Ilya catches himself staring thoughtfully at Napoleon’s muscled forearms. The treacherous lock of hair escapes again around lunch, curling against Napoleon’s forehead and making him look debonair. He leans against his desk, too, the perfectly tailored trousers and waistcoat accentuating the compact lines of him, the slim waist and the broad shoulders, and Ilya gives up entirely on the page he had read three times without retaining any meaning. Napoleon is absolutely aware of what he’s doing, the charming bastard, and the tiny smirk on his face says that he’s absolutely aware of what it’s doing to Ilya, too.

By half four, Ilya can’t take much more of it; he’s plotting out his own waylay-and-drag-to-the-storeroom plan when April shows up, confiscates a good portion of the files they had already combed through, and tells them that Waverly’s told all non-essential personnel on desk duty to call it a day. Napoleon gives her a brilliant little smile and proceeds to drag Ilya out into the late afternoon sunshine, through a small park near HQ and straight into Ilya’s favourite Russian restaurant. He also flirts outrageously throughout dinner, but it isn’t with words: it’s the way his eyes linger on Ilya’s face and crinkle at the corners when he smiles, the careful brush of his hand over Ilya’s, just once, the way he still hadn’t fixed his hair back into severe, masculine propriety. By the time they are done, Ilya is sure they’ll never be allowed into this place again, but no one seems to have noticed. Napoleon’s hand rests at the small of Ilya’s back for a moment as they’re leaving the restaurant, and the warmth of it pulls at the weight in Ilya’s chest.

*

The inside of Napoleon’s apartment is exactly the way Ilya is used to seeing: well-lived in and a little messy, because they’d been on desk duty for almost a month now, ever since coming back from Tokyo. The scars on Ilya’s ribs and arms are getting lighter, and the scabs on his face are long gone, replaced by new skin, the body relentless in rebuilding itself. Much like the tiny leaves on linden trees and poplars, now bursting to life again after the winter, in Moscow. Napoleon kisses him, just inside the door, and Ilya thinks about the gauzy green clouds floating all over the familiar streets, the sounds of women’s heels clicking on the cobblestones, the sapling branches side by side with the bright flags.

Napoleon doesn’t move to turn on the lights, in the slowly gathering dusk. Instead, he puts on a record, and the voice of Edith Piaf floats into the room, singing of her lack of regrets, the past paid for and laid to rest. They twirl slowly across the floor, in their shirtsleeves and stocking feet, hands clasped together, Ilya’s arm around Napoleon’s waist, Napoleon’s hand resting on his shoulder. They come to a stop as the music swells, Ilya’s lips pressed to Napoleon’s temple, and stay like that, embracing, quiet. The darkness is gathering in the corners, and the pale, gauzy curtain is fluttering in the gentle breeze from the window. They end up curled together on the sofa, watching as the night slips in and the city lights up all around them, and Ilya tells Napoleon that May in Moscow is almost always cold and rainy, but the Victory Day usually dawns bright and clear. Napoleon’s cheek is resting over Ilya’s temple, and their hands are touching. The winter is over; the leaves are unfurling.

The first day after the war is a beautiful one.

**Author's Note:**

> I have too many feelings about V-Day, and I gave them all to Ilya.  
> This was originally posted [on tumblr](http://beili.tumblr.com/post/136713289196/9th); technically set after the [event horizon series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/415819).


End file.
